PaperBox Books

Since we’re about to launch a short story section here at PaperBox Books, I thought it would be a good time to go mention some important aspects of a short story.

Like novels, a short story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning has to jump right into the story. You don’t have the word count available to do a gradual set-up.

An advantage to those of us who suffer from sagging middles, the path from Point A to Point B is shorter. You don’t have room to introduce more than a sub-plot or two. Even so you still need to keep the pace moving toward the end of the story.

The end of a short story can be tricky. Especially for anyone who is used to writing novel length pieces. There is always the temptation to leave a few loose ends. Unfortunately, this makes it a chapter not a stand-on-it’s-own short story. Endings should make the reader satisified not leave them wondering.

Short stories force writers to be concise without skimping on details. The reader must have an understanding of the world you’ve created for your characters within a small word count.

You have to make the characters just as real as in a full length novel so your readers will care about them and continue to read to see what happens.

Short stories are awesome. They are quick reads to make you smile (or have chills run up your spine) without a lot of time investment.

With the advent of e-publishing they’re even easier to buy than ever before. You can purchase them as a stand alone product instead of having to buy a magazine or anthology.

Authors love it because they can release stories frequently to always have something new for people to read.

So what are you waiting for?

Check out the rules for our Summer Short Story Contest (deadline July 31st).

If you are more interested in having your short story published, check out our submission guidelines.

Sue

No Comments | In: Writing Tips | | #

Hi, first, this is not a post for hoarders to use to point out they don’t need help. This is about keeping information that might be useful in your writing.

I generally clean house periodically, and I’m not someone who keeps things, I like clean spaces and lots of room. But, I do tend to keep books. Over the years I have purchased a lot of ‘how to write’ books. Most I’ve glanced through and kept them because they make my bookshelves look writerly. But, today I was clearing out my storage – preparations for moving house – and I found three books that I have used more than once.

Looking through this is inspiring and gave me lots of ideas when I started to work on Closing the Circle.

I have to say there’s nothing like a dip into religions to give you ideas on building your own world.

Any help on building a coherent myth – or borrowing one appropriately, is worth it’s weight in Leprechaun gold.

Encyclopedia of Mythology

Do you have any writing books that you keep returning to time after time?

Perry

1 Comment | In: Writing Tips | tags: opinion, Writing Tips. | #

Hi, I just read this great post on Ask The Publishing Guru

Great tips for creating characters – and shameless plug for my own comment about incidental character development.

Happy writing

Perry

1 Comment | In: Writing Tips | tags: Character development, writing advice, Writing Tips. | #

Hi, everyone. At PaperBox Books, we use social media to connect the readers to our books. For a new author the thought of posting, tweeting, blogging, Linkedin posting and every other social media activity can be overwhelming.

Personally, I write 1 blog as a Project Manager and contribute to this blog. I also have two author blogs I need to keep active: Alice Griffiths and PA Wilson. Along with the blogs, come twitter, Facebook and a number of forums I participate in. I was feeling overwhelmed because I was spending 90 min to 2 hours a day just marketing. This wasn’t sustainable because one of the things you can’t do is be on and off with your social medial marketing – consistency is required!

I spent some time trying to get a handle on what I could do in a week but what happened is I just kept cutting out activities without understanding where I needed to put my effort. This week I changed my approach. Rather than try to figure out what I can do within my week I decided to figure out what was really taking the time.

Let’s just look at my activity on blog comments and Linkedin discussion contributions.

First, I find inspiration for my blogs in other people’s blogs and comments. Then I find opportunities to comment on blogs and Linkedin suggestions from what I follow on my gmail accounts.

I would browse postings and discussions until I found something I could comment on, sometimes this took most of the hour. It never took more than a minute to comment, or join the discussion.

Now let’s look at today – my first day on my new approach.

I set my iTouch stopwatch to find out what the time suck really was. I opened Gmail and started looking for blogs and discussions. Epiphany #1. I didn’t need to read beyond the ones I commented on – reading was a separate activity. I quickly scanned the headlines and found two Linkedin discussions, commented and move on to my googlereader account.

Using the same concept, I scanned headlines found 2 I had comments to contribute and stopped looking. Total time for this set of activities – 15 minutes. So, not really 90 min to 2 hours

I went back and read the remaining discussions and blog posts, but because I had completed my social media tasks, I didn’t feel like I was marketing for the whole time.

So, the tip is to focus on the real activity, not on all the time you spend around the activity, and you will be less overwhelmed.

Happy writing.

Perry

No Comments | In: Marketing Help, Writing Tips | tags: book promotion, marketing, perception, social media, time management. | #

One of the things that a writer needs to do is develop their craft.

Simply writing more stories and stretching yourself to write new genres or working on the part of writing you find hardest will improve your skills. But, like most things in life, you can make bigger leaps if you work with others.

A conference is an organized series of talks or workshops. Some conferences incorporate writing time, but for the most part, you are there to learn skills, techniques, or career lessons from the pros. Shaw Guides is a great place to find writing workshops. It slices and dices the listing so you can easily find a workshop/conference when, where and for what skills you need.

Writing retreats are different, you will find some on Shaw Guides. but you can create your own. You can find a resort, or a B&B in some location – maybe where you’ve set your book – and go alone, or get some writer friends together, and set up specific writing tasks.

If you are trying to get started on a book, have a two day retreat on outlining or character building, or world building. If you are trying to get the first, second, five thousandth or last revision done, take a long weekend, get away from distractions. Then do it.

The benefit of taking a writing friend – not just friends who will want to golf or shop or whatever – is that you have someone to eat meals with who will understand if you are in the groove and don’t want to stop.

One conference I’ll shamelessly plug is the Canadian Authors’ Association CanWrite! 2010. June 2010 in Beautiful Victoria BC.

Happy Writing

Perry

No Comments | In: Writing Help, Writing Tips | tags: growing your skills, opinion, writing advice, Writing Tips. | #

When we got our first horror submission I was worried. I didn’t read horror and didn’t have any idea what to say. Also, I don’t read it for a reason – nightmares, baby.

We often get work submitted that doesn’t fall into what either Sue or I read. In addition, both Sue and I belong to critique groups. So I spend a lot of time reviewing and giving advice to people about books I would never read. Before I started doing it, I didn’t think it was possible.

I have found that I can give and accept critiques across genres. Here’s how I take on a review like that.

I start by looking at the premise, is it credibly set up. For horror, is it frightening? Is the ‘evil’ thing bad enough but still believable within the archetype – let’s not talk about sparkly vampires.

If that’s there, then I just start looking for the same things I normally do. Does the story start at the beginning of the action? Is the dialogue and description engaging? Does the author have a strong voice?

As I read, I look for grammar and punctuation issues. Not that I’m an editor in that sense but sometimes it jumps out. And then I try to decide if I would read the book. I have to say a few books I’ve read outside my normal taste have intrigued me enough to dip my toe into the genre.

On the flip side, I listen very carefully to critiques from people who don’t read/write in my genre. I have to know the conventions of my own genre to write a good story, but my critiquer doesn’t. So, I have to sort through the suggestions to find ones I can work with and discard the ones that I can’t because of the rules. One of my critique groups keep telling me ‘I would like to know more about the background of this person’ or ‘why didn’t you tell me about this aspect’. I thank them because I needed the reader to be wondering at that point – it’s a mystery.

I guess the suggestion here is that you don’t need to find someone who writes or reads the same books as you. Feedback is valuable. If you don’t have a critique group, go find one.

Happy writing

Perry

No Comments | In: Opinions, Submissions, Writing Tips | tags: advice, critique, opinion, writing advice, Writing Tips. | #

Hi, one of the responses to our Twitter offer to give a free look at 2500 words, jumped out at me as soon as I got three sentences in. The writer had great voice! Then in my google reader I found this post at Murderati and thought I would share it with you. They say it much better than I could.

Happy writing

Perry

No Comments | In: Awesome Links, Writing Tips | tags: Voice, writing advice. | #

I’ve been reading a lot about how writers are using youtube.com for book promotion. They’re doing trailers, interviews and promotional bit to get the word out about not only their books, but also to build their reputation as an author.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been testing out my cameras for sound quality, scouting out locations, trying to figure out how to get rid of unflattering shadows etc. Then there was the whole – what am I going to say, how am I going to say it, what image do I want to present information I needed to have clear in my mind before I started.

It’s complex, there is a lot of non-writing stuff to think about.

I decided to give it a shot last week and put the ‘better’ results up on youtube.com – there were ‘several’ attempts. For my test run, I chose to do informal videos as Sue Nelson Buckley, the author. This would allow the style to be less polished than representing PaperBox Books.

If you want a more technical overview of the videos and tips and tricks that I’ve learned during the process take a look at my blog at SNBConsultingServices.ca (my alter ego).

In the meantime, here is some writing advice and an explanation of why I chose to publish both versions of Jake and Kathryn’s story in the Dual Version – The Trouble with Jake and The Problem With Jake. Enjoy

Fast Facts about me and some writing advice

A tale of two novels

No Comments | In: Happening in the Market, Marketing Help, Writing Tips | tags: book promotion, videos, writing advice, youtube.com. | #

I have seen three movies in the last short while and my reaction to them was very different. It made me think of what I expect in a movie – and wonder if I’m expecting too much. And, then, of course I took that to the concept of books.

So, here are the three movies, my reactions, and what I think a writer can learn from them.

Avatar, 3D Imax - really the only way to go for the special effects. I was impressed with the effects. I was not impressed with the story. All the money spent on the effects was so that the aliens couldn’t be men in rubber suits. But, the story had them acting as men in rubber suits. If only they had spent a few more dollars to get a story with some depth.

For the writer, I think the lesson is for you to create characters with depth and stories with complexity. Make sure your villain isn’t cardboard. Remember, they never know they are the villain. Make sure your protagonist isn’t pure. If they have no flaws, they aren’t interesting.

What would I have done – hey, what the heck, it’s my blog. I would have had more of the soldiers realize they were doing wrong. I would have had one of the scientists take the side of the soldiers. And, I would have had corporate guy try to stop the madness. And the blue aliens; come on, one of them should have been a traitor, one of the tribes should have refused to fight.

Alice in Wonderland, 3D – not sure why it was in 3D. The story was full of cool characters with quirks and brave hearts and evil plans. Actors gave great performances and the bandersnach and jabberwocky were cool. But, not the use of effects. I didn’t understand why the white queen needed to be such a ditz but it didn’t ruin the film for me. I was just disappointed.

For the writer, I think the lesson is to go for it. If you’ve put something in your book that is the printed equivalent of 3D – don’t just dip your toe, dive in over your head and struggle until you gasp for air.

What would I have done? The Jabberwocky’s head would have landed in the laps of the audience.

The Green Zone – regular D. A great story. Only predictable in hindsight (the sign of a great story). I won’t say too much because it opened yesterday and I don’t want to give spoilers. The flaw only affected me in the theatre so I can’t really say it was a problem. The camera jiggled so much I got seasick. There were no safe spaces in the film where I could relax my eyes. I had to leave the theatre twice.

What can the writer learn? OMG – if you can write a story like this you don’t need my advice. Even through the nausea I was engage with the characters – even the villains. I understood how people can get caught up in something and take a side which turns out to be wrong. I believed the ending, but I would have believed any one of three other endings.

What would I have done differently? Either steady the camera or make the seats move with the action.

Happy writing
Perry

No Comments | In: Writing Tips | tags: movies, Writing Tips. | #

I know we’ve been talking a lot about editing and polishing lately, but as I go through another submission I see the same things over and over.

Around the third round of edits, most writers stop seeing the story.

Before you submit your edits to your proofreaders, your publishers or even post it online yourself, give it one last read through.

Try to read it as if you are unfamiliar with the story. Watch for clunky sentences and missing information. Most readers will only read your story once. If it doesn’t make sense and they have to keep guessing at what you’re trying to say, they won’t buy your book. These days with e-books people can download a sample, and it’s not always the first chapter, so your entire novel has to shine.

Read it aloud!

You’ll catch twice as many errors and ommisions when you read it aloud than if you just read it to yourself. By the time we’re fully into the editing process, we’ve become so familiar with our words that we read what we meant to say instead of what we really said.

Better still have someone else read it aloud to you. They won’t automatically fill in the gaps, they’ll read what’s actually on the paper. Better still, if what you’ve said doesn’t make sense, they’ll tell you.

As an alternative to pestering my friends to read my novels after each edit, I downloaded a free program from Natural Reader. It reads my story for me, I sit back in my chair and listen. Because it’s the free version, it has some limitations. It will only read approximately 100 words at a time, but for editing purposes, this is perfect.

While the computer voice can be annoying, it’s monotone-ish cadence really makes you concentrate on the words. If you’ve written a fantasy or sci-fi and have all sorts of atypical names, it won’t pronounce any of them correctly, but you’ll get used to that fairly quickly.

This final step is crucial after you’ve done major edits to your story. I really can’t stress this enough. The last thing you want to submit to a publisher is a manuscript where they can easily play “pick out the edited sections”.

Sue

No Comments | In: Writing Tips | | #